How good are Commandos?

I'd like to see some Death Star Planet Killer Super Weapons....oh yeah, we've got nukes.


Ironically, adding a paratrooper would ruin the game flow as they'd instantly capture a province without firing a shot, sometimes. Truthfully, the only fair way to implement a paratrooper (if they ever do so) is to give it a "landing zone" or else a "disembarkation time". If you want to capture a province, you must land outside of (but near to) the control point, then foor it the rest of the way, to give the defense a chance to get their you-know-what together. Else, having a disembarkation time at the control point would simulate that necessity.

Think about it this way. An Armored Car can speed through an unoccupied province and capture it and keep going. As fast as that is, it's still not instant. The crews of the AC's have to disembark some soldiers in the local capital offices, capture a few officials, bring the local police under submission, and then leave at least a token command to keep the province loyal until the rebellions start (or until reinforcements arrive). But if a paratrooper can just capture a province at near-instantaneous speed, then the time it takes to capture the local fat cats and wrangle the police and other immediate resisters is no longer being simulated. And apparently some* people want this game to actually simulate WWII

(*@'MontanaBB', I'm looking in your direction. )

Why is this thread not closed? Question" Are commandos good?2 was already answered with many answer, latest is...

-Are comandos good?
-Don't know, but we dont need paratroopers

I get accused of bias, nepotism, flawed logic, and a general despicable character if I close any paratrooper-related thread. Maybe one of the other mods can do it?

To the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever accused you of nepotism or having a generally despicable character. And I would personally defend your character, as well as your usual high-quality work as an administrator, even if I believe you are the last administrator who should be moderating threads on this topic.

Yeah, so let's lump all of the "paratroopers" threads into one single monstrosity of a thread, which runs 10+ pages of barely relevant comments, where the opinions of the overwhelming majority of Call of War players get buried in 2-year-old posts. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense ---- but only if you think that a new airborne infantry unit should be excluded from the game at all costs, and you're willing to do anything possible to squelch the conversations of the majority who actually want a new airborne infantry unit.

I do find it remarkable that the same vocal minority who oppose the addition of a new airborne infantry unit to the game also seem to believe that the grotesquely over-powered commandos unit is perfectly acceptable, as well as fantasy units like nuclear battleships, and anachronisms like tactical nuclear missiles (with pinpoint accuracy) and nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

@montana: If you mean me by that: afaik I have never spoken on this forum on the subject of commando's or nuclear battleships. If you ask me straight out, I'm against both (well, against the nuclear ships straight out; the commando's should be reworked into "light infantry", "moutain troops" or smth like that), but I don't find them as disruptive to gameplay as the paratrooper blueprints as they are on the table. Nuclear ships are way out of reach for any game length that I usually play; commando's are good, possibly OP, but their (low) speed and availability (capital prov building) limits their usefulness against more devastating options like air power; they're still "conventional". Paratroopers as suggested are like nukes to me, a whole different ballpark.

Having some ridiculous units in the game is no excuse to add more, or we would have genetically-modified dragons in no time.

Now fellow mod, close this thread cause it is about commando's and not about paratroopers.

I did not, and I do not. But there are plenty of others who fall in the category as described.

Actually you could combine the two topics through research.

Level 1 Commandos get mountain and city bonuses as current. Research to
Level 2 they become Marines +50% speed on embarking/disembarking. Research to
Level 3 they become paratroopers - can land X distance from the airport they start in at flight speed Y

At each level you loose the old ability but gain the new ability. So depending on what map your playing determines how much research you pour into them to get what you want. Needs some tweaking to flesh out strength/cost etc.

May I be the first to accuse him of nepotism? I just really like nepotism. It's a neat word. It's meaning makes a lot of sense to me (parceling out rank or positions to friends or family). And I'm sure Roko hasn't done that in this game. But I'd still like to be the first to accuse him of it!

jk

lol, "pinpoint accuracy".

Sure, they hit where they're sent, but sometime's the target's are moving so quickly that you "accurately" hit an empty battlefield. And no amount of blast radius will make up for some targets at the extreme edge of a nuke missile's radius. That being said, nukes are generally pretty frickin' sweet in this game. But they are at the back-end of the timeline, so I'd probably cease calling them anachronistic. After all, it's not like they're ICBM's unless you count traveling over the Med or the Middle East as "intercontinental"
I like this approach. But my only criticism would be to not lose past-learned abilities. That seems strange in that you'd be asking troops to learn new skills but forget everything they ever knew about their already-mastered abilities. I had a somewhat similar concept in that I thought a "paradrop" command could be learned via research and that it would apply only to regular (normal) Infantry (and they'd have to be at least level 4 Infantry while having researched the paradrop skill). And there should STILL only be a limited range and that they must have a somewhat substantial disembarkation time over the target. Otherwise, I wouldn't really be in favor of this game-changing dynamic. But still, you do present an interesting case for all the features a special unit COULD have if given the research.

Come to think of it, upgrading units shouldn't just make them faster and stronger. There could be some new features at higher levels that would really make upgrading along a chosen path more lucrative and fun. No more would everyone just max out Tac Bombers. Instead, they might want to upgrade Fighters and Naval Bombers to achieve a "Kamikaze" feature that I've requested before. Maybe once level 6 Militia has been researched, a player can choose one Militia from his troops per day to be converted into a Commando unit (this would effectively increase the rate at which Commandos are produced. And, by giving the player the choice to pick which Militia gets the free upgrade per day would make the game more interesting for all involved. (Hey, I kinda really like this idea. I just thought of it.)

Maybe a level 5 Armored Car could have the ability to set up a free barracks once in its lifetime (for each AC). But this barracks is only capable of producing Militias as a sub-level 1 barracks and would have to be upgraded to a full level 1 barracks for a factory to utilize it to increase production speed and to build other infantry types. Oh, and the AC would have to be sacrificed to represent a scouting crew founding a resistance cell. And, a level 0.1 barracks (or whatever it's called) would produce Militia at the older very slow rate that used to be true (a full 24 hours).

Wow, I'm just full of ideas, right now.

They dont lose learned ability, but they lose old equipment and get another one for new operation mode.

Oh good grief. This is what Diabolical is reduced to; arguing moot points online.

To be fair I had to take a 6 month hiatus after kicking his butt into the next year, so I kinda give him that benefit - but still, this is a bit of a stretch for someone that thinks so highly of himself.

Are you even in any games anymore, Diabolical?

lol, I've got 6 active games right now, though one will be ended at today's day-change with me winning a 100% VP Gold-prize. (The poor bastard that played against me in a duel abandoned too soon and so I was denied using my armada of nuclear missiles to score heavy in my ratios...instead it's just against the stinkin' AI.)

As for you kicking my butt. I seem to remember you backstabbing me after we were fighting a mutual third-party opponent. I had grown complacent, I suppose, and I let you walk all over me. By the time I realized you were really going to run the knife through me and not just pass through my lands en route to the real enemy, I was already too far afield to stop you. So, congrats on that.

I really should thank you, though. Thanks to you, my trust of allies has grown even more sparse. I am playing a little too defensively and it's making my victories take even longer than normal in these games. Alas, nobody -- and I mean NOBODY -- has been able to successfully stab me in the back since you. So, again, thank you for reminding me of an important lesson. Trust must be earned. I extended trust to you when I didn't really know you. I paid for it. I won't pay that price again.

Despite my appreciation of your lesson, unfortunately, since you did betray me, I've put your name at the top of my blacklist of untrusted players to avoid alongside @Redd Baron as the most infamous of back-stabbers I've come across in this game. His name has been on that list for a couple years now. Yours has been there since that fateful match where you earned your infamy. Unlike some other players on my blacklist, your name was pushed up to the top. In fact, here's an excerpt from my blacklist. Note that you are still not number 1.

01.) <He who shall not be named> (the most contemptible backstabber)
02.) KingCongo (none shall be loathed as much as this notorious backstabber)

There are five other names on that list. So, as you can see, it's not exactly a big list. Most backstabbers don't even make that list since I usually catch them in the act and thwart their evil intent. That I failed to prevent your betrayal is a testament to your underhanded trickery and cunning. Anyway, do yourself and everyone else a favor and don't mention my name in your posts, anymore.

On a side note, I'm not a bitter man. I do keep a blacklist to avoid certain players that have made me nauseous. But there are other players who didn't fill me with bile. And that is my whitelist. My whitelist is much bigger than my blacklist and grows much more often. It's a list of players that are either quite trustworthy or are just awesome to play against.

You see, I like to have allies I can trust. But I also like to have worthy and honorable opponents who can not just challenge me, but do so cheerfully and with grace and good sportsmanship. Because such players are honorable in my eyes, I feel it quite appropriate to list some of them here. I'll note that a few of them might not be seen that favorably by some of my readers, but these are all people that I've had positive dealings with and with whom I have no complaints.

Here's the top 14 on my list. Note that it's not necessarily in order of most awesome to least. But some of the names on this list would certainly be in the top 10 even if I had 100 entries because they are just that cool.

01.) Sir McSquiggles [former staff]
02.) axelrod [Jason]
03.) [PL] Mark Achkar [Lebanon]
04.) [PL] K. Rokossovski [staff]
05.) [SK] Henry Liang
06.) [SK] Habib Hassan [Pakistan]
07.) [SK] Vilan_007
08.) SeaBreezeza
09.) [PL] grandpoobah52 [staff]
10.) _Starkad_ (Wild Lobster) [former staff]
11.) Mathex319 [senior staff]
12.) Edward D Davis [Alaska]
13.) [PL] Peter Mat [good team player]
14.) [PL] challie [nice person, team player]

Are we even talking about this topic now, "How good are commandos"? Cos I feel we aren't

Would be fine, if we collect some statistic about commando fights! I mean like this:

Terrain: mountains
Home land defense: non
Fortress defense: non
Attacking army:
pc1 commando (10/5) SBDE: 100%, 1 pc lvl3 infantry(4/1,5) SBDE: 100% adjusted nrs: 24/11,5 (1*10*2+1*4/1*5*2+1*1,5). HP: 35 (25+15)
Defending army: 1pcs lvl3 AA (2/1,5) SBDE: 100%; 1 pcs lvl3 infantry (6/2,3) SBDE: 100%. HP 25 (10+15)

In round 1:
attacking army should cause 24 damage - , but real damage was: X

After having some (at least 40-50) battle with commandos, we can see the real effect! Without that we are just talking about X factor - about random...

in city;
all units at 100% condition,
no fortress, no homeland defense:
Attacking forces:
1 pc lvl5 Infantry + 1 pc commando : calculated damage: 5+10*1,25= 17,5 - real damage: 3
Defending forces:
1 pc lvl2 AA unit calculated damage: 1,5 - real damage: 1 (on commando unit)

Next round:
Calculated damage: 5+10×0.98×1,25=17,3 real damage: 3

Next round
Calculated damage: 5×0,95+10×0,95×1,25= 17,1 real damage 2

Finished in round 4! Commando seemed to significantly underperforming!

2 Commandos (full power)in Mountains vs 3 lvl3 LT (not full health)both run in each other, also every stack had 1 attack and 1 def tick. After first tick LT's dead, Commandos less then 15% damaged.

Just a reminder: Please don't use the displayed damage values as exact measure how much damage a unit will do. Most of the time these are rather maximum number and the actual damage will be a fraction of it.

In other cases these values are very close to the real damage! Such underperfomance (3 instead of 17,5) I have not realized! More over this underperformance was not a one of item (caused by random), but the same in the coming 2 round (the last one hard to evaluate).

pls note: I calculated with SBDE as well!

There is a simple way to fix this problem...not only for Commandos, but to make the overall performance of all units better-reflect their stated values while retaining an 'X' factor.

Check out my latest thread in the suggestions/criticisms section, here. It covers how to utilize a mean value for the average 'X' factor by using a standard deviation formula.

Shameless advertising